follow the roads to save the day (we live and die along the way)
by romanovaly
Summary: "We're all just stories in the end..." / Percy and Annabeth and their past, present, and future [a collection of AU oneshots]
1. paper roads

_one. two. three. four. five._

It takes a lot to count to one hundred, let alone one thousand. She tries, though. Oh, how she tries. It doesn't seem too bad in the daytime where a simple message can make her day. But, at night, the insecurities thrive and she's back to counting...

It takes a lot to count to one thousand. Ninety-one percent on tests. Thirty-five cents for a milk, eighty-five to ride the bus. She makes eight dollars and twenty five cents an hour. There's a little less than one hundred and twenty days in the school year. Seven days to a week. Fifty-two weeks to a year. One hundred years to a lifetime.

_thirty. forty. fifty. sixty. _

He lives three thousand miles away. _T__oo much, too far_, she whispers at night when she gets in her car and starts the engine, a printed out map and her phone her only company. There's a voice saying_ she should think this out_. What's she gonna do? Just show up and hope to god it all goes well? She's well on her way to Nevada when those voices almost make her turn back to San Francisco.

But, she thinks this is one of _those _moments. Of _their _moments. And when her phone buzzes with a text and the screen lights up in the darkness, a photo of _her and_ _him _illuminated for a moment, she knows her decision.

_seven hundred. eight hundred. nine hundred. _

Three thousand fucking miles. She counts every single one as she drives past mountains and cornfields and Small Town, USA. She takes note of the shrinking distance with each green road sign proclaiming New York City is _this _far away. She stops for McDonalds and ignores the way her phone_ doesn't stop ringing_. She's gonna do this damn the consequences. There was a note on the kitchen table and_ that's enough right_?

She's eighteen and never before has she flaunted that to do whatever the hell she wants.

She hits traffic at six and it doesn't let up until ten. Then it's city after city, highway after highway, gas station after gas station. She didn't really plan this out. Who really does at one in the morning? She grabbed whatever cash was available: a few hundred saved from work and the in-case-of-emergencies credit card. She's got the clothes on her back and the gym bag she threw in the backseat last Saturday after her soccer match. And her phone, sans charger.

It doesn't matter now though. Not when she's crossing the New York border and headed towards Manhattan. It's out of her hands as the radio plays up the latest pop hit and the sun starts to dip down in the sky.

_two thousand. three thousand. _

She's got his address from a package he sent over a year ago for her birthday and from ones delivered during their first and second christmases. She's waiting in her car in a Dunkin' Donuts' parking lot, the last of her phone's battery being wasted as she debates whether or not to call him.

She does, though. (eventually.)

He picks up on the third ring and her heart stops because they're _this close_. She stammers and skips a couple words, but he gets the message. They're back in the same place in ten minutes, with his arms wrapped around her and hers around him. He whispers_ i miss you _into her ear and she rises on her toes to press a kiss to his lips and it's just like that time nineteen months ago where everything seemed possible and impossible at the same time.

_zero_.


	2. may the odds

District Four considers it a great honor to volunteer for Panem's annual Hunger Games. Percy Jackson, however, considers it nothing more than a disgrace. A thought that he whispers into the bright red curls of his childhood friend, her eyes bright with tears at the knowledge that he might not come back after the trek into the shiny, big Capitol.

"If I'm such a promising individual, why are they sending me to my death," he drawls, bare feet kicking up saltwater from their spot on an out of the way harbor.

"Don't let President Snow hear you say that," Rachel Elizabeth Dare says, her fingers picking at a small hole in her pants.

"How about your father, then," snips Percy.

"How about _your_ father," Rachel argues back saucily. "Guess not even Mayor Poseidon Jackson is above the Capitol's games."

Percy sighs heavily and leans back on the dock, his arm bracketing his head, shading the burning sun from his eyes. From their hideaway, the sounds of the District can be heard all around. From the shouts of the dockhands on boats coming into port to the haggling of customers at the local market for the best price on the best cut. All Percy's ever known is life in District Four. Of life at the Mayor's mansion and being next door neighbors with the Dare family.

"We could run away," he suggests quietly, as if someone were listening. Rachel throws seaweed at him. "Ugh, hey, I'm serious. There are these books from before the Rebellion in my dad's library that talk about these different places. Like, there's somewhere beyond the ocean. There's places that are like Panem, but not. Maybe they don't have a Hunger Games over there."

Rachel looks at him dubiously. "Or they could have something ever worse over there."

The sun continues to beat down on them until a horn sounds out across the District. "We should get going," she says, standing up and brushing the dirt off her clothes. "We don't want the peacekeepers to come looking."

Percy grudgingly gets up alongside her, rolling down the sleeves of the starched shirt his mother insisted he wear. The town's center is busy when they arrive, slipping into line to be properly documented by Capitol officials. Cameras are being shoved into children's faces and a large screen silently plays the highlights of last year's Games in preparation for the Reaping. He watches impassively as his father straightens his tie on stage, conversing with the woman who always announces the girl and boy sent to their death. He can't seem to focus, seeking Rachel's gaze as the fanfare begins and thinking that they only had one more year of this. If only he could have been saved this last year and then they could've been free.

The lady trills on the stage and places her gloved hand in a glass bowl filled with narrow slips of white paper. She only gets out the first sound, _Ra—_, before there's a voice saying loudly and clearly, "I volunteer," and Percy watches with wide eyes as a slender teen walks toward the stage, her curly blonde hair tamed into loose braid.


	3. brave little soldier

The world ends on a Tuesday. Not in explosions and floods, but in yelled words and thrown vases. It ends with his favorite cookies – double chocolate chip with rice krispies dyed blue – burning in the oven while his mother's battered body lays spent on the tiled kitchen floor. It ends with his step-father standing tall and menacing, wiping bright red blood from his split knuckles.

It ends with him cowering in the bathroom, the door cracked open just a little, but just enough for his innocence to shatter into pieces around him – small enough shards that repairing what was broken would prove useless.

_His_ world ends on a Tuesday, inside a small, but neatly kept, apartment on a Manhattan corner. Where the rusted fire escape and worn front door carefully conceal the vulgar language and heavy scent of hard liquor. Where the tastefully decorated living room hides the blood stains from his mother's last _fall_. Where the linen closet holds his forgotten skeletons and the medicine cabinet contains the make-up to conceal the rest.

He watches from the crack in the bathroom, hand clenched in fists. Watches as his step-father disrupts the orderly kitchen for a bottle of _something_ to take off the edge. Watches as his mother remains motionless, eyes wide and glazed with fear.

He wonders where it all went wrong. If there was just something that he could have done, just one thing that could have changed the outcome. If there could have been one night when his mom was hidden in the corners of the living room late at night and ge stopped to ask if they could go out. Get out. Leave town. Leave this.

He watches and thinks that the Underworld is nothing compared to the hell hidden here.


End file.
